The Time Traveler's Garden by Drizzle Games
You're a kitchen boy in a garden-to-table restaurant, and you need to grow all of your own ingredients. Fortunately, you have a time machine, so any seed you plant can be harvested in a snap! The only problem is that the apocalypse is scheduled to arrive before you can harvest.
Ran out of time while trying to implement sounds, so the game is missing things like combat sounds. You win some, you lose some, right?
Playable in Browser at itch.io (Controller not recommended in browser until we can implement a bugfix)
🎥 Trailer
https://youtu.be/K21nn69lzug
Developed By
- Phil Ogden (Pdog1) - Design, Programming
- Dan Alexander (lxndrdagreat) - Programming
- Joel Shaffer (maachlan) - Programming
- Tommy Philyaw - Programming
- Omni Jacala (artsyomni) - Art, Music
- Andrew Coleman (colossalcake) - Art
- Chris Szczesiul (chrisszczesiul) - Art
- Special Thanks: - Cara Jones (cawatoons)
Blog Posts
- 🎵 Creating adaptive music in The Time Traveler's Garden by ArtsyOmni
- 🎨 Creating 3D art for The Time Traveler's Garden (Part 1?) by ArtsyOmni
- Wow, thanks everybody! 😲 (Final Results)
Screenshots
Sounds Effects from GDC Game Audio Bundle - SONNISS - Royalty Free Sound Effects
Changelog - 1/9/23 4:50pm Fixed the UI so that it would properly scale to all screen sizes - 1/13/23 5:20pm Fixed the UI menu navigation with controllers
Ratings
| Overall | 46th | 4.133⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 189th | 3.733⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 23th | 4.189⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 57th | 4.311⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 100th | 4.3⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 51th | 3.989⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 129th | 3.944⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 58🗳️ | 56🗨️ |
I really find the idea that you HAVE to plant your own enemies pretty genius.
I really wish you would have feedback on the enemies when you hit them to know you're doing the right thing. I died multiple times because it was very chaotic at times sadly. Though,the different fighting styles for the different fruits and vegetables is really nice :)
Congrats!
Great stuff guys, really well presented and the gameplay loop was fun!
Only real issue is that the lack of sound design in a few areas makes it unclear what you or the enemies are doing.
Where to begin. Graphics, audio, all the details, really lovely! The transition from the music in the apocalyptic future, chef's kiss! (get it?! because KITCHEN)
As others have said, planting your own enemies is a genius idea and twist of this jams stupid theme, lol
I'm very curious where this project could be headed post jam.. :)
If the garden had like a more complex layout (or maye you can even build it with the money you earn from customers?) I imagine that to be really really cool, where you can strategically place the seeds on certain positions to ideally prepare your battleground! (and maybe there's like designated areas where the crops turn "extra good", aka areas the player would normally avoid, haha)
great entry!!
Fun game, I could imagine this as a co-op game.
The combat was kinda unresponsive as I didn't really know if I hit the enemies or when are they hit me.
Overall fun game!
The most funny thing is the customers eating in music rhythm 😍😂
PS: the gamepad stick control is inverted (up/down)
It is quite a good representation of "As you sow, so shall you reap", player take responsibility for their decision. And I think this idea is really amazing and potential!
The graphics are really cool, reminds me of Overcook.
The adaptive music soundtrack adds a lot to the game.
Congrats to everyone in the team!
Love love love this entry, 5 stars
I JUST LOVE HOW IMPACTFUL IT IS TO ENTER PORTAL FIRST TIME so simple, so hard and straight to the feelings
kudos for the art style as well, game looks pretty nice, overall simple idea for a game, BUT OH BOY MAKES YOU REMEMBER IT :japanese_goblin:
PS: It may be a random detail, but the door-swinging animation is so damn satisfying.
I wonder if anyone managed to beat the super tall sandwich. I got very close but eventually got beaten by a few remaining lettuces.
I was very impressed with the amount of detail in the environment and the characters, and I enjoyed that people would come and eat in the background as opposed to just at the bar. I also think it is incredible that Omni Jacala was able to pull of that music in just two hours!
I also really appreciated the massive text letting the player know what to do and when. That's perfect for a game jam because you don't want to spend the time reading instructions. It was so nice to be able to just open it up and play.
I also think it is great that you can get a team of six people together working on the same game in one weekend. You all crushed this Ludum Dare!
Is there any kind of end? I didn't make it massively far due to the enemies being quite hard (especially the massive sandwich recipe!)
As others have said the lack of feedback from the combat was a little bothersome, as it was not clear that I had to kill them at first.
I kind of devolved to just spamming attack and running around :smile:
Things like choosing what seeds to plant on your own, so you can balance the difficulty and the orders would be a nice improvement same with using different kitchen utensils as weapons.
The adaptive music is cool, You got a lot done the the three days
Great work!
i especially appreciate how the micro-narrative makes so much sense: of course if you could time travel, it makes sense to plant seeds, to to the future when they're ready, harvest them, then take them back in time to serve freshest ingredients to the customer. but, it all goes horrible wrong when the future is a nightmare of mutant plants!
i really really appreciate this kind of thoughtful design, where the mechanics and twist aren't arbitrary, and come together for a cohesive whole.
(i too found the enemies to be rather difficult, maybe having a block or dodge roll would help)
The only thing I wasn't sure about was if I actually hit the enemy or not. If the attacks were depending on the current position and the mouse where it points to would have made the battle system easier (tested on web).
Fine entry!
Or maybe you start the game in the future when certain foods no longer exist, and you have to time travel back to get the seeds. Maybe you can't bring items back and forth through time, so you need to plant the seeds in the past and defeat a boss to prevent them from destroying the seedlings. And @phillip-scott's idea to swap out or upgrade to new kitchen tools/weapons over time would be amazing!
I really liked how there were consequences to your decisions, even if small. After a while I realized I could position certain enemies apart, like the peppers on the left and the tomatoes on the right for instance. The rolling guys were NASTY though, as I tended to have trouble timing my own rolls against them.
Ultimately, I think the best thing about this game is the contrast to punchline. I loved how the music changed and has a high-pass filter-ish sound to in. Once you exit the portal, everything returns to normal and you hilariously just serve food to the customers. Everything is timed perfectly and the joke is executed well!
Though i really miss those Iframes that i get in real life after each hit... Since without them these vegetables are always getting the better of me...
My only complaint is that it felt a bit tedious to go drop the seeds and then go slice them. I would have liked maybe a bit more action gameplay.
Overall amazing job!